You kinda know what you’re in for when you go to see a movie about
an international love affair that’s written mostly in iambic
pentameter. Especially one by writer-director Sally Potter, whose
previous exercises in pretentiousness include Orlando, The Tango
Lesson, and The Man Who Cried. But even those not in love with Love—and
its kin, Art and Beauty—may be surprised to find that Potter’s latest,
Yes, is thought-provoking, gut-wrenching, and achingly poetic. For
about 20 minutes. The rest, in the words of one of its young Irish
characters, “is a load of shite.”

And strenuously stylized shite at that. Potter blurs, slows, and
staggers movement throughout this story of pseudophilosophical
coupling, often as we hear the characters’ whispered inner thoughts.
The scenes involving the main couple, preciously named She (Joan Allen)
and He (Simon Abkarian), get the most heavy-handed treatment. We see
them, both with loose, flowing curls, in a jewel-toned bedroom as they
caress each other in postcoital languor and exchange perhaps the most
excruciating pillow talk ever committed to film: “Someone invented
zeros so that we could count and measure the unthinkably large,
unwieldy numbers,” She murmurs. “And it was then, by multiplying the
power of 10, we began to measure space, and so too time. You tricked
me. You start with one and then give yourself the source of all the
numbers!”

You may not know what She, an unhappily married Irish-American
scientist living in London, is talking about, but He, a Lebanese
surgeon-turned-cook, understands perfectly, and he listens to her with
rapt attention. And so Potter then offers a literally nauseating
restaurant scene, her camera whirling and out-of-focus as the pair
clutch at each other and She whispers, “Hold me! Hold me tight!” He
doesn’t hold her, exactly, but he puts his hand to good use anyway, the
culmination of which is marked by her big smile—still slowed and
blurred—and a blues riff.

Yes isn’t simply a romance, however. It’s framed by a thesis about
literal and figurative dirt, put forth mainly by the maid of She
(Shirley Henderson), who talks about tidying the well-appointed but
sterile household of her employer in a little-girl voice directly to
the camera. But occasionally Potter tries to make some other point by
training the lens on a member of the janitorial staff at, say, a
hospital or workplace after the main characters have exited. The worker
will stare at the camera with a severe look; we, apparently, are
supposed to feel guilty.

Turns out that liberal guilt is behind the affair as well. Potter
allegedly started writing Yes on Sept. 12, 2001, and a heated
conversation between She and He about the Anglo and Arab worlds they
represent is one of the movie’s most interesting. It’s during this
severely written argument that the passion with which Allen and
Abkarian spew their couplets finally feels genuine rather than
ridiculous.

To be fair, sometimes the verse is as unnoticeable as it would be in
a skilled staging of Shakespeare. But mostly it clanks artificially,
especially when spoken by the film’s lower-class characters (a
multinational kitchen staff’s downright laughable rhymed argument about
women), integrated with showy curses (“Do you really think that I’m
unclean, a secondhand kind of fucking machine?”), or burdened with
unnatural circumlocutions (“You’re not fat” becomes “I did not infer
that you are overlarge”). (Wait. “Infer”?)

If Potter is trying to make a point about how language defines
individual realities, she’s probably not making it the way she intended
to. Potter’s poetry and stylization finally jell to devastating effect,
however, in a scene involving the rushing thoughts of She’s comatose,
elderly aunt (Sheila Hancock). Expressing all of this woman’s regrets
about wasted time as well as her desire for friends and family to wail
and self-destruct at her passing, the monologue is about as
heart-rending as doggerel can get. (“I want to know I’m dead,” she
says.) Too bad it leads us directly back to She and her maddening,
iambic navel-gazing, disguised as deliberate living. True
thoughtfulness shouldn’t have to work this hard.

Existing in a completely different cinematic universe is Must Love
Dogs, a featherweight romantic comedy from writer-director Gary David
Goldberg, who last helmed 1989’s Dad. (The correct responses are “Who?”
and “What?”)

Based on a novel by Claire Cook, the movie tells of story of Sarah
(Diane Lane), a recently divorced preschool teacher who’s hesitant
about returning to the dating game. Her annoying family, of course,
feels differently, as the opening scene shows: An apparent intervention
is taking place, with the 40-ish Sarah getting accosted by her three
sisters, her brother, and her dad, all clutching pictures of available
men and offering clichés such as “There’s life after divorce, you
know!” Unfortunately, it’s more difficult to break up with one’s family
than one’s spouse, so Sarah politely humors them, even after her most
meddling sister, Carol (Elizabeth Perkins), submits a profile of Sarah
to an online dating site.

Sarah soon has all sorts of options in the romantic department,
though they’re divvied up into two major categories: Offensive &
Charmless and Handsome & Witty. Complicating matters only slightly
are the ungentlemanly intentions of one of the latter group, which
includes Bob (Dermot Mulroney), the hot father of one of Sarah’s
students, and Jake (John Cusack), the cuddly boat builder whose friend
answered Sarah’s ad for him.

Naturally, it takes the remainder of Must Love Dogs’ 90 minutes for
Sarah to figure out which guy is right for her, with roadblocks
including a quasi-wham-bam encounter (he doesn’t want to eat breakfast
in bed!) that leaves Sarah sobbing in the shower and a mistaken case of
jealousy (“I thought you were different!”) that only in a movie would
tear a couple apart. Goldberg’s adaptation also suffers from numerous
elements that are sadly de rigueur in romantic comedies: sitcom
blandness, widdle kids using big words, and, ugh, a family oldies
singalong. (Seriously, does anyone have relatives who actually do this?)

Mercifully, the scenes between Lane and Cusack actually have a
little spark, perhaps due to the 35 pages of dialogue rumored to have
been rewritten by the recently forgotten Say Anything star. Both
actors, as usual, are charismatic and likable, with Lane underplaying
the neurotic-beauty-who-doesn’t-know-it role and Cusack doing his
trademark loquacious-old-soul routine.

Their performances—and Perkins’, actually the film’s funniest—go a
long way toward making this slow sinker remotely tolerable. Yet by the
time Must Love Dogs gets capped off by its ludicrous big-gesture
ending, it’s clear that the titular requirement applies not only to
Sarah’s potential paramours, but also to any potential audience members.

copyright 2005 movie-babe.com

The legions of horror fans who accused Rob Zombie of unoriginality in
House of 1,000 Corpses will have to give him some props for his
follow-up, The Devil’s Rejects. After all, when was the last time you
saw a Southern-fried sheriff, frantic to catch a family of deranged
killers, yell out to one of his officers, “You get that movie critic
over here as soon as you can”? Sadly, the cinéaste-cum-crime-fighter,
brought in to give insight into one felon’s Groucho Marx–borrowed
name, is one of too few daffy touches in this sequel, which, unlike the
fun-house-flavored Corpses, takes its ’70s-slasher veneration much more
seriously. Then again, writing, pacing, and acting are all taken much
more seriously, too—meaning that it’s probably time to start regarding
Mr. Zombie as a bona fide filmmaker.

The Devil’s Rejects begins with a
police raid on the murder-happy Firefly household, where, you might
remember, Corpses’ poor-unfortunate protagonists were tortured with
backwoods accents, satanic poetry, and all manner of sharp objects.
Mother (Leslie Easterbrook, taking over for Karen Black) is arrested,
but Baby (Zombie spouse Sheri Moon) and Otis (Bill Moseley) make a run
for it. The remainder of the movie, then, just follows the pair as they
alert their daddy, Capt. Spaulding (Sid Haig), about the trouble and
try to have some fun while they lie low in the dusty middle of nowhere.
Naturally, they torture and kill a few folks in the process. Zombie’s
dialogue is once again corn-fed and occasionally funny (such as
Mother’s sentimental “I keep thinking about the old times. Like when
you was a fucking baby”). But the overall lack of jokiness means that,
this time around, the endless bloodletting goes beyond enjoyable
fright-film excess. Zombie makes you watch anyway, of course, which is
not only the point but also the director’s best tribute to the
Vietnam-era auteurs who inspired him. From the opening credits that
freeze on Zombie’s weirdly magnetic actors to a bravura (yes, I said
it) Bonnie and Clyde–esque ending, The Devil’s Rejects is grittier and
more confidently stylized than its predecessor, and at times it’s
downright hypnotic. Better yet, it generates chills without a zombie,
spooky kid, or ghost child in sight. Now that’s original.

copyright 2005 movie-babe.com

The legions of horror fans who accused Rob Zombie of unoriginality in
House of 1,000 Corpses will have to give him some props for his
follow-up, The Devil’s Rejects. After all, when was the last time you
saw a Southern-fried sheriff, frantic to catch a family of deranged
killers, yell out to one of his officers, “You get that movie critic
over here as soon as you can”? Sadly, the cinéaste-cum-crime-fighter,
brought in to give insight into one felon’s Groucho Marx–borrowed
name, is one of too few daffy touches in this sequel, which, unlike the
fun-house-flavored Corpses, takes its ’70s-slasher veneration much more
seriously. Then again, writing, pacing, and acting are all taken much
more seriously, too—meaning that it’s probably time to start regarding
Mr. Zombie as a bona fide filmmaker.

The Devil’s Rejects begins with a
police raid on the murder-happy Firefly household, where, you might
remember, Corpses’ poor-unfortunate protagonists were tortured with
backwoods accents, satanic poetry, and all manner of sharp objects.
Mother (Leslie Easterbrook, taking over for Karen Black) is arrested,
but Baby (Zombie spouse Sheri Moon) and Otis (Bill Moseley) make a run
for it. The remainder of the movie, then, just follows the pair as they
alert their daddy, Capt. Spaulding (Sid Haig), about the trouble and
try to have some fun while they lie low in the dusty middle of nowhere.
Naturally, they torture and kill a few folks in the process. Zombie’s
dialogue is once again corn-fed and occasionally funny (such as
Mother’s sentimental “I keep thinking about the old times. Like when
you was a fucking baby”). But the overall lack of jokiness means that,
this time around, the endless bloodletting goes beyond enjoyable
fright-film excess. Zombie makes you watch anyway, of course, which is
not only the point but also the director’s best tribute to the
Vietnam-era auteurs who inspired him. From the opening credits that
freeze on Zombie’s weirdly magnetic actors to a bravura (yes, I said
it) Bonnie and Clyde–esque ending, The Devil’s Rejects is grittier and
more confidently stylized than its predecessor, and at times it’s
downright hypnotic. Better yet, it generates chills without a zombie,
spooky kid, or ghost child in sight. Now that’s original.

copyright 2005 movie-babe.com

A faithful remake of 1976’s Bad News Bears seemed an impossible
project for 2005. And by “impossible,” I mean it’d be test-marketed
straight to the shelf. Kids smoking? Yeah, right. A coach who drives
while sipping from a whiskey-and-beer cocktail? Don’t think so. As for
the racial slurs that flew out of the ballplayers’ mouths in the name
of comedy, well, they wouldn’t exactly be considered family-friendly
today.

So anyone who loves Michael Ritchie and Bill Lancaster’s underdog
story for its taboo-tweaking is probably regarding the redo with the
same attitude the new Morris Buttermaker does his Little League duties:
“Yeah, I got enthusiasm flyin’ out my ass.” But with a surprising PG-13
rating, Dazed and Confused director Richard Linklater at the helm, and
the folks behind Bad Santa on the script, the new Bears, I’m happy to
report, will be offending all manner of sensibilities at a multiplex
near you.

Yes, with Billy Bob Thornton also on board, the movie is essentially
a sports version of his naughty ho-ho-ho-ing back in 2003. But the
formula works. Though I’m quite sure the words “brilliant” and “Billy
Bob” haven’t appeared in the same sentence since the Scary One’s Sling
Blade days, nothing else can describe how Thornton handles
Buttermaker’s first introduction to his hapless “fuckin’ League of
Nations” team. Some of the scene, admittedly, is just run-of-the-mill
jackassery. He mispronounces the foreign players’ names. He calls the
team’s lone black player “bro.” But when one of two Mexican brothers
begins speaking to Buttermaker in Spanish, Thornton dons a barely
veiled look of disbelief and pulls his lips back for a microsecond in a
way that’s, no two ways about it, hilariously, malignantly brilliant.

Screenwriters Glenn Ficarra and John Requa didn’t mess a whole lot
with the story, even lifting certain scenes and dialogue wholesale.
Buttermaker, now a failed-pro-ballplayer-turned-rat-exterminator
instead of a pool cleaner, still drives a big yellow Caddy and clashes
with perfectionist coach Roy Bullock (Greg Kinnear). After an uptight
mom (Marcia Gay Harden) sues the league to allow even the most pathetic
kids to play, Buttermaker agrees to coach them for some extra money—he
spends all of his own on booze, cigarettes, and women, as we see in the
montage of the “important man shit” he tells someone he’s got to do.
Not nearly as enthused about the prospect are the boys themselves, who,
in addition to the requisite Fat Kid (Brandon Craggs), Sickly Kid
(Tyler Patrick Jones), and Angry Kid (Timmy Deters), include a
Wheelchair-Bound Kid (Troy Gentile) and an Armenian Kid (Jeffrey
Tedmori) whose parents don’t believe in baseball.

The kids are still foul-mouthed and funny as they duck away from
balls and curse their drunken, good-for-nothing coach. But Thornton is
given all the best laughs, whether it’s his advice to the Armenian,
Garo (“Lie your ass off—this is America! The important thing is you’re
right and they’re wrong”), his own sorry parenting (“Don’t talk to
anybody but what’s-his-ass,” he tells his pitching-ace daughter), or
his willingness to exploit others for his own benefit (“Hey coach,
what’s ‘carcinogen’ mean?” a player asks while helping to exterminate
some rodents. “Propaganda,” is the reply). Think of him as the cynical,
resigned opposite of the grown-up in Linklater’s last experiment
pairing a hopeless adult with clueless children, 2003’s School of Rock.

Of course, this is a sports flick, so everyone gets a chance to
overcome his weaknesses—and despite, thank God, the filmmakers’
decision to stick to a nonsugarcoated outcome, it’s all uplifting
nonetheless. Too bad Linklater & Co. couldn’t trust Thornton to
show us what a dirtbag Buttermaker is on his own instead of, say,
throwing in that predictable team trip to Hooters. Such lapses mean
that Bad News Bears isn’t quite the sparkling showcase for Thornton
that School of Rock was for Jack Black. But it’s hardly a dull one.
Anyone who’d like to suggest Billy Bob can’t carry a movie without a
funny accent and a fistful of French-fried potaters should heed
Buttermaker’s words to the little Spanish speaker: “You can save it,
son.”

No matter how good-humored they are, the guys in Murderball have a
way of making the jokes in Bad News Bears regarding cripples and
helmets seem not so funny: They’re quadriplegics. Not that they ask to
be pitied. In fact, the tough, grounded, and smart athletes profiled in
Henry-Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro’s documentary even crack a joke
or two of their own.

The nickname for the sport officially known as quadriplegic rugby
seems obvious after the gist of the game is described: “It’s basically
kill the man with the ball,” explains one participant. In reinforced
wheelchairs that can take a pounding, players regularly knock each
other sideways in their attempts to score. And it’s not just a
recreational sport: Teams in 12 countries compete in the Paralympics,
whose 2004 matches are documented here.

Murderball, though, isn’t as much about the sport as the men who
play it. Rubin and Shapiro profile several strong personalities,
including Mark Zupan, a tattooed, goateed hothead who’s shown in the
opening scene (metaphor alert!) putting his pants on one leg at a time,
and Scott Hogsett, who become paralyzed in an accident at age 19 and
bristles at anyone who mistakes the Paralympics for the Special
Olympics. (“All of a sudden I went from being a cripple to a fuckin’
retard!”) Each of their stories about how they became handicapped is
touched on, with Zupan’s going into heartbreaking detail about his
eventual reunion with the friend whose drunk driving caused his
paralysis.

Amazingly, however, the filmmakers succeed in making a movie that’s
heavy on neither the yay-them! condescension nor the yay-us! sympathy.
Most of the guys shown here are now comfortable with their lots, but
they admit that the first couple of years were difficult. To contrast
the confidence of the gladiators, Murderball also features Keith
Cavill, a young man recently injured in a motorcycle accident who’s
still in the throes of adjustment. We see him as he goes through
therapy and comes home, where he reacts less than positively to the
redone amenities. Keith, who loved racing, certainly does feel sorry
for himself—until he learns about quad rugby, meets Zupan, and sees
that his competitive life may not be over after all. None of the guys,
however, is above finding humor in his situation, whether it’s in a
hospital video titled Sexuality Reborn or Keith’s asking if a
hard-to-open farewell card is a “therapy joke.”

Matchups between longtime rivals Team USA and Team Canada—fueled
mostly by the disaffection of Canadian coach Joe Soares, who switched
sides after a perceived slight by the Americans—are the highlights of
the movie, which in refreshing Bad News Bears style doesn’t always
result in our homeboys coming out on top. Speed metal and
sometimes-nauseating camerawork add to the roughness of the
already-brutal games, which are as thrilling as those of any
fast-paced, able-bodied sport. (Though the use of the Polyphonic
Spree’s “Light and Day/Reach for the Sun” makes things seem a bit more
wussy.)

Ultimately, however, Murderball succeeds like any good sports movie
does: by going beyond the competitions to offer insights about
perseverance, relationships, attitude, and getting the most out of the
time you’re given, whatever body you’re stuck in. As one player
remarks, “Your mind becomes a bigger disability than physical stuff.”

copyright 2005 movie-babe.com

A story in which kids are sucked up pipes and torpedoed down to
incinerators sounded like the perfect project for Tim Burton and his
frequent freak collaborator, Johnny Depp.  But the trailers
for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory weren’t so promising, with its
Oompa-Loompas looking all too human and a squeaky-voiced Depp looking
way too girlish. Nothing about this adaptation of the 1964 Roald Dahl novel
seemed terribly unsettling—which was, well, unsettling.

It doesn’t take long, however, for the film to reassure that it’s
not another toothless Big Fish. There’s Danny Elfman’s anxious,
Hitchcockian opening music, for one. And the cold saucer eyes of the
rotten children—excepting, of course, warm, lovable Charlie—who get
their grubby hands on golden tickets. And better still is the greeting
Willy Wonka (Depp) gives visitors before they enter his enormous mill
of mystery: an assembly of animatronic kewpie dolls singing the
infectious Wonka song. Their motions are stiff, their plastic skin
mottled. And just when you’re thinking how creepy they are, they catch
fire and melt.

It’s a deliciously fiendish first act, even if the movie is never
again quite so dark. Burton has insisted that this version is not a
remake of 1971’s Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory but rather a
fresh take on Dahl’s story (hence the return to the book’s name). But
with the exception of a little tale-tinkering by Big Fish writer John
August—Wonka now has some daddy issues, and the bite has been taken out
of the end—the 2005 Charlie proceeds in much the same fashion as Gene
Wilder’s showpiece.

The focus is still on Charlie (Finding Neverland’s Freddie
Highmore), who’s dirt-poor and living in the factory’s shadow in a
small, slanted house with his mother (Helena Bonham Carter), father
(Noah Taylor), and two sets of bedridden grandparents, including former
Wonka worker Grandpa Joe (David Kelly). A contest is announced in which
five golden tickets will be hidden in Wonka confections around the
world. The winners will get to tour Wonka’s factory, which has been
closed to the public for years, with no one ever seen going in or
coming out. Charlie wants a golden ticket more than anything, though
because his family can afford to buy him only one candy bar a year, his
chances are slim.

Of course, the earnest Charlie ends up becoming the fifth
ticket-holder, after German butterball Augustus Gloop (Philip
Wiegratz), British brat Veruca Salt (Julia Winter), and two
Americans—snotty gum-chewing champ Violet Beauregarde (Annasophia Robb)
and video-obsessed know-it-all Mike Teavee (Jordon Fry)—all of whom are
suitably vile. The kids arrive full of excitement at Wonka’s door,
though they soon realize that the chocolate factory has probably been
shut off from the world because Willy’s nuttier than one of his Wonka
Bars.

With Wilder’s batty turn as the chocolatier one of the more
memorable aspects of the original, it’s no surprise that Depp does his
utmost to make this Wonka all his own. “Weird” is one of Wonka’s
favorite words—best employed here in the character’s puzzled reaction
to one of Charlie’s acts of kindness—and as is often the case with
Depp, it’s appropriate. Wonka’s pale, pageboy’d look is weird. His
high-pitched “ha, ha, ha”s are weird. His tendency to stop midthought
as he drifts back to “Papa” is weird. And though it is
all pretty funny  — Depp at least maintains the character’s nearly
allergic reaction to children — the performance rarely goes beyond
the merely bizarre. His candy maker may be cheerily unhinged, but
Wilder’s was flat-out disturbed. The first Wonka, who seemed to root
secretly for each kid’s demise, clearly needed to be saved from his
wretchedness. The new one, despite the bad-childhood psychology August
outfits him with, is just a daffy, oblivious spectator to the
“accidents” in his factory. Highmore, meanwhile, ably fulfills his
duties of acting wide-eyed and innocent—not exactly the expert handling
of emotional baggage he performed in Neverland. (Not to mention the
fact that he’s a bit too polished to be believably penniless, in an
uncharacteristic visual lapse for Burton. The original Charlie? That
kid looked poor.)

Charlie’s set pieces are expectedly spectacular, with highlights
including the edible day-glo woodland surrounding the factory’s
chocolate waterfall; the dark, echoey factory innards that Wonka’s
glass elevator travels through; and a giant white room full of
nut-shucking squirrels that turn frighteningly violent toward the
demanding Miss Salt.  And future
generations will not only be thankful that the Oompa-Loompas (played
by one actor, Deep Roy) aren’t as terrifying as the originals, they
might even like them: Though nearly all of the first’s saccharine
musical numbers have been axed, they’ve been replaced by songs of
various genres (Bollywood, boy-band, hard rock) that the little
workers, in little outfits, rather entertainingly perform. It may not
give anyone nightmares, but it’s pretty twisted nonetheless.

Like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Caterina in the Big City
relates the adventures of an outcast kid. But just when it seems as if
the most important issue raised by the movie is going to be the one
asked by Caterina’s new eighth-grade classmate—“Are you alternative or
preppy?”—writer-director Paolo Virzì turns his fish-out-of-water tale
to something much more complex.

To be fair, the opening scene hints that this isn’t all about the
girl. Caterina’s father, elementary-school teacher Giancarlo (Sergio
Castellitto), is giving his students a farewell speech. He doesn’t
hesitate to tell his slow-witted former charges in the backwoods that
he despises them and is ecstatic that his transfer to Rome has finally
been granted. Giancarlo doesn’t leave his intellectual arrogance at
school, either, carefully instructing the bright Caterina (Alice
Teghil) on how to get the most of out her education and sighing
whenever his dim wife, Agata (Margherita Buy), fails to get his jokes.

Caterina, who’s never happier than when she’s alone and pretending
to conduct the classical music playing in her headphones, doesn’t know
whether she’s alternative or preppy, but she’s heavily recruited by the
boisterous, confident, and politically savvy members of both factions
of her class. Margherita, the black-haired, kohl-eyed daughter of
divorced leftist intellectuals, leads the commie contingent and gets to
Caterina first, teaching her how to drink, fight the Man, and listen to
Nick Cave. Giancarlo couldn’t be more pleased: He takes advantage of
his daughter’s friendship by attempting to slip his unpublished novel
to Margherita’s mom, a well-connected writer—which he asks Margherita
to keep on the down-low from Caterina.

As the focus shifts from the guileless Caterina to the increasingly
unhinged Giancarlo, it becomes clear that Virzì and co-writer Francesco
Bruni are presenting the schoolyard as emblematic of, well, a whole lot
of things—political divisiveness, social climbing, class lines,
lifestyle choices, bitterness over one’s perceived lot in life.
Castellitto subtly morphs from an overearnest academic to a man so
desperate to play with the popular kids that he doesn’t even care what
they’re all about. When Caterina’s friendship with Margherita turns
sour and she takes up with Daniela (Federica Sbrenna), the whoo-hooing,
party-hopping daughter of a powerful figure in Italy’s reactionary
government, Giancarlo immediately starts groveling for favors.

Teghil makes Caterina an appealing lens through which the
complexities of Italian politics and urban life get filtered. Her
clueless delight in following whatever the other girls are doing is an
unsettling contrast with Giancarlo’s careful, greedy orchestrations.
And as the man undone by his desire to live a life other than his own,
Castellitto is devastating to watch, slipping so gradually to the point
of embarrassment that it’s something of a shock to realize that his
failures are his own fault. Giancarlo should consider himself lucky
that he only has a breakdown. If Wonka had a say, he’d head straight
for the incinerator.

copyright 2005 movie-babe.com

The fanboys, naturally, have been skeptical. As with most
comic-book-to-big-screen translations, no detail has been too small for
Fantastic Four devotees to obsess over since pre-production. The Thing:
Will old-school effects be more convincing than CGI? Sue Storm: Should
a blond, all-American superheroine really be played by a Dark Angel?
And after the long list of directorial talent rumored to have been
attached—including Chris Columbus and, unbelievably, Steven
Soderbergh—the decision to bring Taxi helmer Tim Story on board was
probably the most knee-shaking announcement of them all.

It’d be nice to say that all the fears were groundless. But sorry, kids, it’s clobberin’ time.

From the moment a tarted-up Jessica Alba is introduced as a
“director of genetic research,” Fantastic Four is less a whiz-bang
popcorn flick than an unintended comedy. Anyone with a basic knowledge
of the Four will already be aware that it’s a space trip gone awry that
“fundamentally alters the DNA” of Sue Storm (Alba), Reed Richards (Ioan
Gruffudd), Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis), and Johnny Storm (Chris Evans),
but if you aren’t familiar with the background, good luck getting the
gist. The script, by Michael France (Hulk, The Punisher) and Mark Frost
(Twin Peaks), introduces the Marvel characters in a muddle: In a
boardroom somewhere, a handful of pretty people talk very seriously
about a decision—the terms “space,” “human genome,” and, laughably,
“IPO” can be discerned, but otherwise the quick scene is just a lot of
stern glances and dramatic music.

Suddenly, the group is out of its business wear and in sleek scuba
suits. And just as suddenly, it’s in “space” (launches, apparently, eat
up too much of the budget) and something bad is happening: Ben, who
floated away from the main vessel and is out at some other one, needs
to float back before time runs out. He seems to move pretty damn slow,
but he makes it. In between, tremendously fake-looking fire shoots
waywardly around the crew—which, for what must be streamlining’s sake,
also includes soon-to-be nemesis and generic company head Victor Von
Doom (Julian McMahon). The walking-dead performances at least emphasize
that our heroes are not yet fantastic—not by a long shot.

Unfortunately, even afterward they’re not all that great. Each
starts to discover his powers soon after coming back to Earth (a trip
also unseen). Sue, aka Invisible Woman, can disappear—and, according to
the special effects, throw air. Johnny, the arrogant group hothead,
turns into the Human Torch, able to ignite, albeit cheesily, at will.
Reed, as Mr. Fantastic, can stretch and flatten, à la Mama Incredible.
Ben, the growly hangdog of the group, is transformed into the
supersize, rock-covered Thing—which makes him very sad. And Victor
begins growing metal skin and a chip on his shoulder as he morphs into
Dr. Doom. This because he was fired over the whole IPO thing.

Fantastic Four’s bad acting, airless dialogue, and zero star appeal
reach Revenge of the Sith levels. And there’s not a whole lot of plot
here, either: Mostly, the Four isolate themselves in some spacious
location and bicker tediously about how to handle their new
superheroicism. It’s anyone’s guess whether they shut themselves in for
hours or days. When any of the characters do show up outside, there’s
no explanation except convenience, such as when the Thing runs away and
happens to save a guy ready to jump off a bridge. His happenstance
heroism results in a big melee, which is soon being witnessed by his
teammates and wife (Laurie Holden), none of whom knew where he was. The
wife’s bizarro reaction to her new and improved husband is so
ridiculous that it’s nearly entertaining enough to make up for the
sequence’s gaping holes in logic.

There is, of course, a bit of action here and there—comprising,
again rather randomly, one scene of X-treme skiing and another of
X-treme competitive motocross, both of which Johnny participates in as
suddenly and casually as if he had gone to the fridge for a soda. A
romantic subplot is thrown in for additional, uh, thrills, but as sexy
(if weirdly shellacked) as Alba is, here she can’t make even a love
triangle sizzle. Oh, and Doom, the movie’s sole villain, is really more
Xanax’d than evil. But one thing he says to a hostage will reverberate
with disbelieving audiences: “Painful? You don’t even know the meaning
of the word.”

Elizabeth Banks, who plays one of the central characters in Heights,
was nearly a Fantastic disaster herself, having been considered for the
role of Sue Storm. The loss is debatable: Alba will certainly end up
richer, but Banks’ participation in writer-director Chris Terrio’s
quiet, engrossing debut won’t bring her grief from either mean critics
or the 10 people who end up seeing the movie.

A Merchant Ivory production, Heights details 24 hours in the lives
of an interconnected group in New York City. There’s Diana (Glenn
Close), a drama teacher and well-known actress; her daughter, Isabel
(Banks); and Isabel’s fiancé, Jonathan (James Marsden), who are
consumed with planning the couple’s wedding. There’s also Alec (Jesse
Bradford), an upcoming actor who auditions for Diana and turns out to
have a link to Isabel, and Peter (John Light), a gay biographer who’s
sent out to interview the ex-lovers of his famous-photographer,
magazine-piece subject, with whom he also had an affair. Peter is soon
ringing Jonathan, who is none too pleased.

Co-written with playwright Amy Fox, Heights quickly draws us in with
its two mysteries involving Alec and Jonathan—though the reasons behind
Jonathan’s sour reaction to Peter’s messages, granted, are a bit more
predictable than Alec’s question mark, which early on is set up to show
that, though Diana has never met him, he isn’t familiar with her just
because of her fame. While these carrots dangle nearly to film’s end,
Banks makes Isabel an enticement all her own. Her character, a wedding
photographer who ends up getting fired and tells an old friend that her
engagement ring feels “heavy,” though clearly in turmoil, sounds
equally unshakable whether she’s saying, “My mother is driving me
crazy,” “I miss you,” or “Whatever.”

Yet the calm that Banks lends Isabel is less reminiscent of a
disaffected zombie than one of the walking wounded. The seemingly
perfect life she’s planning for herself is something she’s profoundly
unsure about—most deftly demonstrated in a moment when she’s just
turned down a freelance assignment that would conflict with her
wedding. Her contact says he figured she could work around it. “Have
you ever had a wedding? You don’t work around them. There’s planning.
There’s…fucking string quartets,” she responds, her annoyance quickly
wilting into utter resignation.

Other compelling performances include Close’s Shakespeare-obsessed
bon vivant, who throws parties stuffed with creative types and urges
her students to approach their lives with Elizabethan passion, all
while quietly languishing in an oh-so-sophisticated open marriage. Of
the men, all are utilitarian—though Marsden’s unavoidable
good-old-boyness actually makes Jonathan unlikable—but they’re
instantly outplayed by Rufus Wainwright. The singer’s brief appearance
as one of the photographer’s exes almost matches Banks’ performance,
sketching a character who initially seems slightly standoffish and
borderline arrogant but reveals hidden depths with an interesting turn
of phrase or flash of intellect.

Despite its title and life-altering plot twists, Heights never
becomes melodrama; rather, it’s all about capturing people at pivotal
instants. Granted, it’s quite a coincidence that so many of them happen
in one night. But the insistently mellow way in which Terrio allows
events to unfold makes them seem entirely natural—and way more
character-defining than some screwed-up DNA.

copyright 2005 movie-babe.com

Any woman who greets a co-worker with “Hello, stupid” is all right by
me. This is one of the many charms of Lily, an enterprising miss who
goes from barmaid to big bucks in Baby Face, an unmistakably pre-Code
gem from 1933. As Lily, Barbara Stanwyck dishes out nothing but sass
for the film’s snappy 71 minutes, to everyone from the boozers who like
to play grab-ass at her father’s bar to the pathetic horndogs who dare
fall in love with her when she pursues a “career” in New York: With a
look that’s both angelic and self-satisfied, Lily needs only coo in the
right man’s ear to move on to better jobs, better housing, better
bling. Yes, Lily unabashedly sleeps her way to fortune. And yes, there
are sometimes dire consequences—a murder-suicide not least among them.
But does Lily learn a lesson? Hell, no! And that, my friends, is as
popcorn-worthy as any alien attack.

copyright 2005 movie-babe.com